Ashes 2013: Are Australia set for years as underdogs?

With it surely comes the series, and a supremacy that could stretch on and on.

For the England supporters who celebrated amid the long shadows and Sunday evening sunshine at Lord's, these are heady days and improbable numbers.

Not since 1890 have England won the first two Tests of a home Ashes series. They have never before won an Ashes Test by so many runs in this country, and only once by more overseas. To do it at the spiritual home of the game, where Australia had only lost twice in more than a century, makes it dreamier still.

Towards the end of the
innings thrashing in Melbourne in the previous Ashes series,
some England fans amused themselves by taunting the opposition with a variation of an old football chant. These days, asking "Are you [bottom-ranked Test side] Bangladesh in disguise?" is arguably more insulting to Bangladesh than Australia.

Test Match Special analysis

Geoffrey BoycottEx-England batsman & Test Match Special summariser

"England have outplayed Australia; they are just better. Australia have only one top player and that is Michael Clarke.

"The Australians need to bat as a six-man unit. They don't have a Bradman who can get 200 so it doesn't matter what the rest get."

Seven days ago, Australia were within a few Brad Haddin boundaries of going one up in this series. How long ago that now seems. If nails were bitten then, they are being hammered into the coffin now.

Only once have they come from 2-0 down to win an Ashes series, almost 80 years ago. On that occasion they had Don Bradman on their side. Now they have batsmen in their side who are barely as good as 1980s Essex journeyman
Don Topley.
Back then, they were also playing timeless Tests. Now they can't even get to five days.

There is another sporting song that is often used after such thrashings. The bad news for Australia is that England are already playing them almost every week.

Five-nil in this series is now a genuine possibility rather than provocation. Even if logic would suggest the odds are still against such record-breaking revenge, the gap between the two sides has been so pronounced that you wonder how much damage has also been done for the upcoming series down under.

Australia have problems with players in the team. They have problems with players not in the team. Their new coach can't improve them.
Their old coach is suing them.

Wherever you look there are flaws, fault-lines and failures.

Young spinner Ashton Agar, having returned match figures on a turning pitch here of 0-142 and 2-248 in the series as a whole, has offered his captain neither control nor impact. The man he replaced, Nathan Lyon, is short of bowling and even shorter of confidence, having been given the heave-ho in favour of a 19-year-old kid who had been turning out for Henley Cricket Club.

England's biggest Test wins (by runs)

675 runs
v Australia, Brisbane, 1928

354 runs
v Pakistan, Trent Bridge, 2010

347 runs v Australia, Lord's, 2013

338 runs
v Australia, Adelaide, 1933

329 runs
v Bangladesh, Chittagong, 2003

At the top of the order, Shane Watson is no longer so much a candidate for lbw as sworn in as president. For the third time in this series he was caught bang in front on Sunday; more than half his dismissals in Ashes Tests have now come this way. His opening partner Chris Rogers looks what he is - a decent second division county player who had to wait until he was 35 for his second Test for good reason.

Australia have now gone 10 Tests without a batsman in the top three making a century. To put the slump in further context, the last time that happened was between 1899 and 1902.

Phil Hughes, at four, has the stickability of rain on slate. Steve Smith, at six, is at least a place too high.

At this point you expect a team to turn to the next cab in line. Except gone are the days when Australia had batsmen of the quality of Michael Bevan and Stuart Law waiting patiently on the rank for a chance.

Simon Katich has been scoring runs in county cricket. But he is 37 and has been told by the chairman of selectors that he will never be picked again. Twice. Ricky Ponting? Ricky Ponting is retired. Australia might as well wish for Warnie and McGrath too.

The only man in the touring squad with credentials is David Warner, a player more suited to demolition derbies than taxi duties. But having failed to knock Joe Root out of the series with his nightclub haymaker last month, he has now also failed to score any runs on his
rehab/exile in Zimbabwe.

How's stat?!

31.16% of Shane Watson's Test dismissals have been lbw - more than any other batsman in Test history (minimum 70 dismissals). Ten of his 18 Ashes dismissals have been lbw.

On Sunday he was forced to issue a statement through Cricket Australia apologising for offensive tweets sent by his brother Steven, which not only cursed Watson but managed to create an entirely new sporting creature, the "escape goat". Cricket Australia might have complained, but it was too busy
apologising for their own inadvertent offensive tweet
the previous day. To call it chaos would be kind.

Even in England's negatives the home side can find positives. They are 2-0 up and running away with it despite four of their most reliable batsman being yet to make a substantial score between them,

Captain Alastair Cook has a series aggregate of 83, Kevin Pietersen 85. Jonathan Trott is averaging just 26, Matt Prior, their player of the year, a mere 13.

Pietersen's likely absence from the third Test is therefore hardly the blow it could once have been. The other three will surely improve. It's enough to scare Australian children to sleep.

Their bowling attack too leaves London in better shape than it left Nottingham. Tim Bresnan's accuracy and economy were an improvement on Steven Finn; Graeme Swann will continue to be given turning tracks and carry on making maximum use of them. While Agar has taken a wicket every 252 balls, at an average of 124, Swann has struck every 50 for 22.

English teams and supporters are unaccustomed to acting as favourites, as top dogs rather than underdogs.

Comments

@330playful banter is part of it, glad you go with it, but let me put you right on one score, you say that English wrongly think that they rule half the world, that's laughable, just check the facts, people who left these shores colonised half the world and gaining autonomous status doesn't remove your heritage, just remind me which language is used the world over and therein lies your answer

I thought Australians were quite proud of the convict thing, despite so many of them only arriving there in the 20th C.I think you'll find most English people are well used to not having an empire. I think we feel we under-achieve on account of our relative population. eg. more English people play rugby than most other countries put together. So on paper, we should win more.

@329 I made that statement and I said it because in a lot of areas including sports, the English still hold a view in the back of their mind that they own half the world and there is no excuse for defeat in any arena. This is a semi-playful comment and is also generalising, but not half as bad as being referred to as a convict lol

On the assertion that " England think the world owes them something":What do we supposedly think we're owed? And what is the basis for this judgement?I'm genuinely curious to know what I'm supposed to be owed that I didn't know I even wanted.Or is it just some sweeping comment that has no real meaning?

We went from 1987 to 2005 without winning one Ashes series. Not sure we even drew one either. I dont expect the aussies to as long as that. In jan 2007 they had one of the greatest teams of all time and had been top dogs since '89. In Border, waugh, taylor and ponting they had 4 of the best capts and batsmen of all time. Those talents dont come along that often.

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